[kennethmac2000]

Ireland, having converted the vast majority of its road distance signs to kilometres a decade ago, completes the transition by next month converting its road speed limits to kilometres per hour (a welcome side effect of which being that motorway speed limits will actually go up slightly, from 70 mph to 120 km/h).

Given that this will result in the UK being the only remaining country in the European Union with imperial road signs, is it not about time we changed our signs to metric too?

I would be interested to know people's thoughts on this issue.

[mitchell_pgh]

I'm guessing everyone will say yes, they should go metric.

Coming from an american, metric makes SO much more sense...

That being said, I have no mental sense of what a meter is other then it being around three feet long...

[d4nth3m4n]

whats metric?

</ignorant american>

dont think it really matters, you cannot just drive over to the uk from the rest of the eu, you have to rock the train/ferry.

resolve the driving on the left issue then worry about metric/imperial units of measure.

Edit: added emphasis

[starman]

The only thing is that when old farts say "we went to school uphill both ways", they could say it was longer because of the English system .

Seriously, I think the whole planet should go metric. There was a push for it in the late 70's, early 80's and it never happened.

Mike

[Randman]

You could probably dredge up any discussions on switching from the pound to euro and just substitute metric/imperial for it.

[GoGoReggieXPowars]

Originally posted by kennethmac2000:
Ireland, having converted the vast majority of its road distance signs to kilometres a decade ago, completes the transition by next month converting its road speed limits to kilometres per hour (a welcome side effect of which being that motorway speed limits will actually go up slightly, from 70 mph to 120 km/h).

Wasn't it a bit weird having distance in km and speeds in mph? How are you supposed to do the "Well, it's 100km away, I'm going 120km/h, I'll be there in under an hour" What unit were petrol and diesel sold?

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
That being said, I have no mental sense of what a meter is other then it being around three feet long...

You'd be surprised how quickly you develop that mental sense. When I was stationed in Germany I very quickly gained a mental sense of 170 kph.





Or a couple of times, 240 kph.

[kenazo]

Considering they still use "stones" for body weight measurement....

I think it'll be a while before they switch to metric. You also have to remember they are desperately clinging to anything that reminds them they were once a world empire. "We have a queen and Imperial measurements. Bow down before our awesome might!"

[djohnson]

If they ever tried that in the US, it would be our luck that they would stick the signs at 70Km/h... Anyone remember driving 55mph and it taking forever?

[drive-thru]

Yes, and switch to the Euro, and weigh things in kg (quite a few people, especially athletes, already do anyway).
I think British people should feel more European. Currently 'The Continent' is Europe for most Brits and we're just...Britain.

[turtle777]

Originally posted by drive-thru:
Yes, and switch to the Euro, and weigh things in kg (quite a few people, especially athletes, already do anyway).
I think British people should feel more European. Currently 'The Continent' is Europe for most Brits and we're just...Britain.

Ack.

If switching to metric, then in every aspect of life...
Re: EURO - that would be nice !

-t

[OB1]

Originally posted by kenazo:
Considering they still use "stones" for body weight measurement....

I think it'll be a while before they switch to metric. You also have to remember they are desperately clinging to anything that reminds them they were once a world empire. "We have a queen and Imperial measurements. Bow down before our awesome might!"

Cast aside your stereotypes. They do not serve you well. To be honest, we're probably more ashamed of that whole empire thing... So, let us discuss more important matters, like roadsigns-

I suppose you're right about the metric thing kennethmac2000. I've driven around Europe and not had a problem adjusting, so I just assumed no one else cared either. I don't mind changing the roadsigns to metric if that's what everyone wants. Most things are metric anyway, apart from weighing ourselves in stones, I suppose that is a bit odd... I'll swop you two pigs for your horse...

[kenazo]

I was only teasing OB1. As a member of Her glorious colony Canada I have nothing but respect for the Motherland

Now what I'd like to see is a bridge across the channel...and a big X lane in the middle where the road changes from right to left hand drive. Now if anything will make Britain an impermeable fortress that traffic jam would be it.

[Sven G]

The real question should rather be: after that the UK has completely switched to metric units - which will happen, won't it? see also Australia, BTW - and optionally to right-side driving, when oh when are the US of America going metric?

Paradoxically, the US military seem to be the only ones who thoroughly adopt the metric system, even with the 24 hour clock (see the so-called "military time" - a concept which in Europe would sound rather hilarious, being actually the main "civil time"!).

It's a shame that the USA (mainly the government, but also the people) is one of the few "civilised" countries - maybe the only remaining one? - to take it so "sluggishly" (pun intented) on this matter...

[kennethmac2000]

Originally posted by GoGoReggieXPowars:
Wasn't it a bit weird having distance in km and speeds in mph? How are you supposed to do the "Well, it's 100km away, I'm going 120km/h, I'll be there in under an hour" What unit were petrol and diesel sold?

Fortunately, it is a legal requirement throughout the European Union that petrol and diesel are sold in litres.

In addition, vehicle fuel consumption must be quoted in kilometres per litre, although in the UK it is also quoted in miles per gallon (which I can't quite understand since fuel hasn't been sold by the gallon here for many, many years).

I think the observations of various people about imperial units making British people feel a continued, inflated sense of world importance are unfortunately only too true.

And, yes, it is high time that UK society became metric in all respects - including when quoting people's heights and masses - as is the case in most Commonwealth countries.

I deliberately focussed on road signs in this thread as these are something that most people come into contact with on a daily basis, and I feel that their metrication would serve as an important catalyst to the conversion of the other remaining vestiges of imperialism (although this clearly requires continued political will on the part of the government, as was not the case in Canada following its road sign metrication programme).

[milkmanchris]

I think had it been anyone other than the French who invented the metric system, we would have swapped years ago.

Strange tho, what we would we do without the quaterpounder with cheese.

Old ladies no longer able to buy a quarter of boiled sweets, or a pint of milk.

And as for the humble pint of frothy ale.

Why fix what aint broken?

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Sven G:
Paradoxically, the US military seem to be the only ones who thoroughly adopt the metric system, even with the 24 hour clock (see the so-called "military time" - a concept which in Europe would sound rather hilarious, being actually the main "civil time"!).

Your paradox is correct, and it is one of the arguments I use with people in favor of the metric system. People who have never tried it say that converting to metric is too hard. However, soldiers are a pretty good cross section of society and they all seem to manage it.

One thing though: military time isn't exactly like the 24 hour clock you are used to. Each time zone is also given a letter identifier. So a time might be expressed as 1300 Romeo for 1 pm eastern standard time. Really critical tasks are always expressed by reference to Zulu time (which is Greenwich Mean Time) no matter where in the world you happen to be. It obviously reduces the possibility for confusion on little things like when a war is supposed to start.

[kennethmac2000]

Originally posted by milkmanchris:
Why fix what aint broken?

The thing is... the imperial system is broken.

All metric units have multiples that are powers of ten, ie, 10, 100, 1_000 and so on. So to convert between units of different sizes, you need only move the decimal point:

1.234 m = 123.4 cm = 1 234 mm

Similarly:

1 tonne = 1 000 kg
1 kg = 1 000 g
1 g = 1 000 mg

Compare that with imperial units:

1 imperial ton = 20 cwt
1 cwt = 8 stone
1 stone = 14 lb
1 lb = 16 oz

Straightforward? No, not really.

If you'll forgive me, let me labour the point a little more...

Suppose we want to find how much paint is needed to cover a wall. The wall's measurements are either 4.37 m long and 2.39 m high, or 14 feet 4 inches long and 7 feet 10 inches high. What is its area?

The decimal basis of metric means we can find the answer straight away as 4.37 x 2.39 = 10.4443, or approximately 10.4 metres squared.

Using the imperial system, we have to multiply 14 feet 4 inches by 7 feet 10 inches to get the result in square feet. We can't do this directly without either converting to inches or decimalizing the measurements in feet. Either way requires extra arithmetic.

The metric system works because it is decimal - the same as the base of our numbering system. That is one of its most obvious yet often massively understated advantages.

[DBursey]

Originally posted by kennethmac2000:
I deliberately focussed on road signs in this thread as these are something that most people come into contact with on a daily basis, and I feel that their metrication would serve as an important catalyst to the conversion of the other remaining vestiges of imperialism (although this clearly requires continued political will on the part of the government, as was not the case in Canada following its road sign metrication programme).

Not sure what's meant by this. Canada converted to metric en mass; from the feds on down. Road signs, vehicle speedometers, fuel pumps, weather broadcasts, everything ... 1976 saw the beginning of what became total national metric immersion, from uom in public and private institutions to school texts.

People learned; the younger more quickly than the old, but learned we all did, as the system simply makes so much more sense. Almost in a mac v windows mental esthetic kinda way.

[milkmanchris]

Originally posted by kennethmac2000:


The metric system works because it is decimal - the same as the base of our numbering system. That is one of its most obvious yet often massively understated advantages.

So would you go the whole 9 yards and go with the 100 seconds to a minute, 100 minutes to an hour type of thing ?

[kennethmac2000]

Originally posted by DBursey:
Not sure what's meant by this. Canada converted to metric en mass; from the feds on down. Road signs, vehicle speedometers, fuel pumps, weather broadcasts, everything ... 1976 saw the beginning of what became total national metric immersion, from uom in public and private institutions to school texts.

People learned; the younger more quickly than the old, but learned we all did, as the system simply makes so much more sense. Almost in a mac v windows mental esthetic kinda way.

Well, to be fair, I suspect sites like this wouldn't exist if Canada was completely metric...

One Metre

And, for a completely unbiased view of where Canada's at, check out Wikipedia...

Metrication in Canada

[kennethmac2000]

Originally posted by milkmanchris:
So would you go the whole 9 yards and go with the 100 seconds to a minute, 100 minutes to an hour type of thing ?

Someone asked me about this last night actually. Whilst, in theory, I would be quite happy to use only seconds and multiples thereof (kiloseconds, megaseconds, etc), I realise that time is somewhat unique, not least because of its inescapable link to the movement of the sun and the earth, around which the current system for the measurement of times and dates is based.

In the time domain, however, what I would obviously advocate is the complete phasing out of the 12-hour clock, since it really does make no sense at all giving two hours in the day the same number.

[veryniceguy2002]

I thought that UK had already change to metrics already...

In fact, I reckon US should change to metrics too. Ask Coca-Cola why it's a good idea, when you grab a two-litre bottle of Coke in the US supermarket shelfs... you cannot find a 0.5 US gallon size coke bottle!

Metrics make more sense... How many feet does a car travel in one second when it travels in 60MPH (without the use of calculator, lookup table, slide rules or Google!)? Now, how many metres does a car travel in one second when it travels in 100km/h (Answer: roughly 25 metres!) It's much easier to do in metrics! (I can elborate a bit more if people interested to know).

Also on driving left hand side or right hand side of the road... I think the UK (also Australia, New Zealand, and many Commonwealth countries + Japan) are doing it right at the moment (driving on LHS). The reason being the driver would be sitting on the right hand side of the vehicle, and it is good to have the preferred hand of the two (with right hand being the preferred hand for the majority of the world's population) more on the steering wheel than the gear box.

[Superchicken]

The Metric system is awesome, everyone should be Metric... even... YOU!

[milkmanchris]

Just a quickie before i finish work and go to bed.....

Will Apple do as well selling 30.75cm Powerbooks ?

Goodnight all

[turtle777]

Originally posted by kennethmac2000:
In the time domain, however, what I would obviously advocate is the complete phasing out of the 12-hour clock, since it really does make no sense at all giving two hours in the day the same number.

Full ack !

That freakin' "am" and "pm" thing is stupid.

Military time for everyone !

-t

[veryniceguy2002]

Originally posted by milkmanchris:
Just a quickie before i finish work and go to bed.....

Will Apple do as well selling 30.75cm Powerbooks ?

Goodnight all

No. Probably a 31cm PowerBook instead.

[Link]

Howabout we make a deal? We dump the imperial measurement system if you start driving on the right side of the road (and left side of the car).

Deal? I'm ready to strike one!

[fireside]

Originally posted by milkmanchris:
Strange tho, what we would we do without the quaterpounder with cheese.

Royale With Cheese?

[turtle777]

Originally posted by Link:
Howabout we make a deal? We dump the imperial measurement system if you start driving on the right side of the road (and left side of the car).

Haha !

-t

[OB1]

Originally posted by milkmanchris:
I think had it been anyone other than the French who invented the metric system, we would have swapped years ago.

Strange tho, what we would we do without the quaterpounder with cheese.

Old ladies no longer able to buy a quarter of boiled sweets, or a pint of milk.

And as for the humble pint of frothy ale.

Why fix what aint broken?

We don't really care who invented it, we did swop. Years ago. There's just a couple hangovers from the pre-metric days like Miles, Yards and Stones.

And we already saved the humble pint a few years ago. Hurray!

[Mediaman_12]

The UK won't be changeing to Metric roadsigns any time soon due to one thing, cost. Apart from having to change every sign which has a distance on (an impossible task, as there are still signs around from the early 30's), all 'advance' sign's that are a measured distance from a junction (i.e. there are signs on Motorways that are 1mile and 1/2 a mile away from the turn) would have to be moved to a more 'metric' distance (the 1mile ones wuld have to be moved to 1Km).
The Irish example is a terrable one, all new signs are in Km 1000's of older ones are still in Miles, new cars are in KPH, old cars are in MPH, it's a huge confusing mess.

[Sealobo]

i don't know... i can deal with both. i think it's just a getting-used-to-it thing. The UK colonized us 106 years ago, imposed the metric system. But we still use the inch-lbs-etc units along with different applications. It all comes down to what you're trynig to measure.

[veryniceguy2002]

Originally posted by Sealobo:
i don't know... i can deal with both. i think it's just a getting-used-to-it thing. The UK colonized us 106 years ago, imposed the metric system. But we still use the inch-lbs-etc units along with different applications. It all comes down to what you're trynig to measure.

No, you go to food markets in Hong Kong and they still measured in cattle or jins! (not pounds!)

[Randman]

Which is funny since Hong Kongers drive on the British side of the road, but once you hit Shenzhen and the mainland, you're back on the right side.
Having been around enough metrics for the past few years, I could handle either one. If the NFL went to metric, it would be easier to switch. But honestly, if the US were to educate kids from an early age on both, it wouldn't be difficult to switch, as long as the positives were highlighted and it not made out to be forced on Americans.
Besides, we already have 2 litre sodas.

[veryniceguy2002]

Originally posted by Mediaman_12:
The UK won't be changeing to Metric roadsigns any time soon due to one thing, cost. Apart from having to change every sign which has a distance on (an impossible task, as there are still signs around from the early 30's), all 'advance' sign's that are a measured distance from a junction (i.e. there are signs on Motorways that are 1mile and 1/2 a mile away from the turn) would have to be moved to a more 'metric' distance (the 1mile ones wuld have to be moved to 1Km).
The Irish example is a terrable one, all new signs are in Km 1000's of older ones are still in Miles, new cars are in KPH, old cars are in MPH, it's a huge confusing mess.

You can have dual readings in speedometers. Cars in US and Canada have that.

[veryniceguy2002]

Oh, BTW, change from US letter to A4 (and tabold to A3)... the rest of the world (including UK) use A4 and A3 paper size already!

[Mediaman_12]

Originally posted by veryniceguy2002:
You can have dual readings in speedometers. Cars in US and Canada have that.

They are never equal size though are they. UK cars have large MPH numbers, while the KPH ones are allways really small, I had a japanise private import a year of two back and it was the other way round.

[kennethmac2000]

Originally posted by Mediaman_12:
The UK won't be changeing to Metric roadsigns any time soon due to one thing, cost. Apart from having to change every sign which has a distance on (an impossible task, as there are still signs around from the early 30's), all 'advance' sign's that are a measured distance from a junction (i.e. there are signs on Motorways that are 1mile and 1/2 a mile away from the turn) would have to be moved to a more 'metric' distance (the 1mile ones wuld have to be moved to 1Km).
The Irish example is a terrable one, all new signs are in Km 1000's of older ones are still in Miles, new cars are in KPH, old cars are in MPH, it's a huge confusing mess.

Speed limit signs, for obvious reasons, have to be changed using a big bang approach, but distance signs can be changed over a longer period (although preferably not as long as in Ireland!).

And seriously, cost is not really an issue here. Compared to government spending on social welfare, healthcare or education, the cost of doing this would be negligible.

[kennethmac2000]

Originally posted by milkmanchris:
Just a quickie before i finish work and go to bed.....

Will Apple do as well selling 30.75cm Powerbooks ?

Goodnight all

Come on. Be serious man.

If we are rounding to the nearest inch now, why would we not be able to round to the nearest centimetre if we started using metric measurements?

Ah yes. No reason.

[veryniceguy2002]

Originally posted by kennethmac2000:
Speed limit signs, for obvious reasons, have to be changed using a big bang approach, but distance signs can be changed over a longer period (although preferably not as long as in Ireland!).

And seriously, cost is not really an issue here. Compared to government spending on social welfare, healthcare or education, the cost of doing this would be negligible.

Speed signs can actually changed overnight. Here is Australia (well, actually the state of SOuth Australia) we changed the default speed limit from 60 km/h to 50 km/h about a year or so ago, and affected speed signs all changed within one night (and added a lot of more speed signs a few days before to avoid confusion). Councils were responsible for that. No problem. You can get UK local councils to do that.

[kenazo]

The Wikipedia link is my experience growing up in Canada.

Also, many Canadians still use nonmetric units for common informal measurements. A person's height and weight are normally calculated using the US units foot and pound while area (for reasonably small areas such as floorspace) is measured in square feet. Fahrenheit is used for cooking as are US cooking measurements.

Ask the average person on the street in Canada how many centimetres tall they are, or how many square metres their house is...blank stare for sure. And I am the new generation (more or less).

[Sven G]

Now, can we take all this a step further?

Probably, once having gone metric everywhere on the globe (and having decided on which side to drive), the next step could be to choose between the decimal point and the comma: separators for the thousands are already "illegal" (according to ISO), so we should really choose between, say, 12 756.00 and 12 756,00 (12,756.00 and 12.756,00 both being obsolete). Point or comma?

Then, also on the time front, should we express (24-hour) time as, for example, 16:54 (US), or rather 16.54 (Europe)?

Also, should trains drive on the left (see Great Britain, Italy, France, etc.) or on the right (Germany, Denmark, etc.)?

... And so on: probably there are even more "standardisable" things!

[olePigeon]

Because Ireland was agains the war in Iraq, Britian is going to stand with its U.S. buddies and stick with the English system just to piss off Ireland even more.

The IRA will run around with spray cans and convert all their road signs to metric to confuse the Brits.

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by Sven G:
Point or comma?

Comma please.

Then, also on the time front, should we express (24-hour) time as, for example, 16:54 (US), or rather 16.54 (Europe)?

I have never seen a 16.54 format in Europe.

[Sven G]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
Comma please.I have never seen a 16.54 format in Europe.

In Italy, for example; and also in the Scandinavian countries, AFAIK (at least in Denmark, I think). Anyway, it's easy to verify: one could change the date and time localisation prefences on the computer, and see what comes out...

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Sven G:
... And so on: probably there are even more "standardisable" things!

Sure. Let's standardize on English too. All those other languages are unnecessary and confusing.

And everyone knows that the time is supposed to be written as 00:00 with the colon flashing -- just the way it is on my VCR.

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by Sven G:
It's easy to verify: one could change the date and time localisation prefences on the computer, and see what comes out...

I did check that way for Italy before posting since you claim to be from Italy, and it uses the 16:54 format. I have never seen the 16.54 format, but I haven't been in a Scandinavian country yet. There is no urgent need to standardise that anyway since there is little room for confusion. Unlike the date (and to limited amount the decimal delimiter) format.

[Sven G]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Sure. Let's standardize on English too. All those other languages are unnecessary and confusing.

And everyone knows that the time is supposed to be written as 00:00 with the colon flashing -- just the way it is on my VCR.

Hehe: rather than English, maybe Esperanto.

Of course, ever-changing things such as historical languages cannot - and should not - be standardised: but merely technical things such as the above formats, etc. indeed can (mainly for simplicity and consistency)...

[kennethmac2000]

Originally posted by Sven G:
Now, can we take all this a step further?

Probably, once having gone metric everywhere on the globe (and having decided on which side to drive), the next step could be to choose between the decimal point and the comma: separators for the thousands are already "illegal" (according to ISO), so we should really choose between, say, 12 756.00 and 12 756,00 (12,756.00 and 12.756,00 both being obsolete). Point or comma?

Then, also on the time front, should we express (24-hour) time as, for example, 16:54 (US), or rather 16.54 (Europe)?

Also, should trains drive on the left (see Great Britain, Italy, France, etc.) or on the right (Germany, Denmark, etc.)?

... And so on: probably there are even more "standardisable" things!

I personally think thousand separators are ugly and so always use spaces anyway. As for the decimal comma, I do think it makes more sense than having what is effectively a full stop (as we call periods in the UK) half way through a number. �2,50 or �1.68? I know which I'd prefer.